'I lost money with Mt.Gox'

Daniel Weyer has a hefty collection of bitcoins. He won't say how many, but he's glad he kept them far away from Mt.Gox.

Weyer is a mechanical engineer in Lincoln, Neb. He first got involved with the digital currency at a bar last year, when his friend offered to settle a pool bet by paying him in Bitcoin. After that, Weyer started accepting them as payment for his side business, making iPhone cases.

When he eventually sought to trade the bitcoins around, Weyer avoided Mt.Gox because of the bad reputation it received on websites like Reddit. Another exchange, Coinbase, looked better because it was supported by recognized investors like Andreessen Horowitz, which had backed Groupon (GRPN) and Facebook's (FB) Instagram.

But Mt.Gox's effect on the market is still causing him some accounting problems. He's going to pay taxes on his Bitcoin-trading capital gains last year, but the recent drop in Bitcoin value means he'll have to cash out more bitcoins than he would have otherwise to pay those taxes.

"I feel fortunate that I came in later in the game when there was a little more knowledge of who to trust," he said.

NEXT